Russian President Vladimir Putin made a rare admission about the fuel shortage caused by Ukraine's attacks on energy infrastructure. Addressing senior officials on Sunday, Putin said, 'Unfortunately, there are still lines at gas stations,' revealing the gravity of the situation.
Ukraine has intensified its attacks on Russian energy facilities in recent months. These strikes target Russia's crude oil and refined product sales, the main source of funding for the war.
Facilities targeted in the attacks
Norsi, the country's fourth largest oil refinery and second largest gasoline producer, halted operations last week after a Ukrainian drone attack. The facility near the city of Kstovo, 450 kilometers east of Moscow, is critical for Russia's domestic market.
The Ukrainian military also struck the Orenburg gas processing plant, which has an annual processing capacity of 45 billion cubic meters of natural gas. Located 1,200 kilometers behind the front line in the southern Urals, the plant is strategically important for Russia's energy exports.
Last week, two oil facilities in the Crimean city of Kerch and the Kavkaz port, which transports fuel to the front line, were also targeted with long-range drones. In addition, the Slavyansk and Yaroslavl refineries were attacked. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said these strikes mean 'the reduction of resources serving the Russian war machine.'
Experts: 'The heart of refineries is being targeted'
Indra Overland, head of the Energy Research Center at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), told Al Jazeera that Ukraine is specifically targeting fluid catalytic cracking units at refineries. 'These are the heart of the refineries, and they are difficult, expensive, and time-consuming to replace,' he said.
Overland said Russia is trying to protect these units with scaffolding and nets, but they are ineffective against Ukraine's most powerful domestic weapon, the FP-5. With a range of 3,000 kilometers and capable of carrying more than one ton of warhead, the FP-5 was developed by Ukrainian defense manufacturer Fire Point.
Margarita Zavadskaya, senior researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA), told Al Jazeera that Ukraine is targeting the 'connective tissue' of Russia's geographically vast energy infrastructure. Zavadskaya highlighted how weakly this critical infrastructure is protected in the world's largest country by land area.
Impact on the economy and the public
The crisis is causing unrest among the public. According to Overland, restrictions on gasoline and diesel sales have been imposed in most of Russia's regions, with some stations closing or forming queues of up to 12 hours. This disrupts people's ability to get to work, goods transportation, taxis, and agriculture.
In Russia, the world's largest wheat exporter, the fuel shortage is expected to negatively impact the July-August harvest season, which requires intensive fuel for tractors, water pumps, and other machinery. Additionally, panic buying and hoarding deepen the crisis; fuel costs used in the supply of almost every product, including food, medicine, and construction materials, fuel inflation.
Markku Kivinen, director of the Aleksanteri Institute at the University of Helsinki, said that due to the priority of the Russian army, military logistics are protected, and civilian needs will be ignored if necessary. Kivinen said this affects the government's legitimacy but does not immediately weaken the war effort.
Behind Putin's admission
Experts believe Putin's admission is related to the crisis becoming too visible to deny. Zavadskaya said, 'Complete denial would not be credible and would increase the reputational cost of the crisis.' But she noted that Putin is following a typical method: 'The president maintains control while lower-level officials are held responsible for failures.'
Kivinen said Putin may have wanted to link this tension to his own war narrative by acknowledging the impact of the attacks: 'He could justify his own escalation steps by citing the increasing risks to infrastructure.'
What next?
The developments could increase public discontent in Russia. Zavadskaya said the repeated strikes are shaking the implicit agreement between citizens and the state: 'Citizens pay taxes, accept repression, and tolerate war in exchange for order and basic protection. When refineries burn and fuel becomes scarce, they see that the state cannot fully provide security and stability.'
Overland noted that the energy crisis could become even more difficult. 'It is an interesting question why more attacks have not been carried out on pipelines that are thousands of kilometers long and impossible to protect,' he said, adding: 'Perhaps because they are relatively easy to repair, but Ukraine may also be saving that for the autumn heating season.'
